‘TrailCon 2024 is in the Books’

UltraSignup’s David Callahan on LinkedIn:

For those that weren’t there, here is a summary. There were 4 panels – Events, Media, Brand & Athlete, and Retail. The panels were stacked with important thought leaders from the space. All conversations were informative and professional (sometimes hard when there are differing opinions) among the panelists.

I can’t wait to hear more what the “hard parts” were.

David continues:

Also, one question asked of me during my panel was how the long-tail of the sport felt about this period of growth. While I don’t speak for the long-tail, I was happy to provide an opinion – and in my view, I think the long-tail feels a sense of being disconnected from information about the growth and what growth means for them.

In this industry, it is hard to have your finger on the pulse of information because of the variety of places where it is disseminated. I think this difficulty in assimilating information makes it hard for people to fully understand how developments in the industry apply to them.

I have thoughts on this, of course:

• There are now lots of different media companies that not just reporting, but often creating stories – where there used to be just a couple blogs and it was easy to just visit their sites and get the full scoop.
• Social media first blew this scenario up, created new opportunities and then imploded in itself – no one has a chronological timeline anymore, no one sees the posts from the people and accounts they actually follow.
• While the “old school media outlets” are struggling and are trying to navigate these choppy waters the “new school media outlets” are currently just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. I don’t see a good cohesive plan from them either other than just trying to capture eyeballs.
• In theory podcasts are a goldmine of incredible information being shared in informal interviews but even with the arrival of transcripts the format is largely a locked silo and it’s impossible to link to a specific segment or share out the point worth sharing.
• Not to toot my own horn, but this is what Electric Cable Car is trying to do. Gather the most important stories, make them easy to follow and digest. Link to the source and give credit to the author.
• If you can’t come to this site every day, there’s a newsletter you can sign up where I share the best stories once every other week.